Mormonism and women
Based on Wikipedia: Mormonism and women
In 1873, Ann Eliza Young stood before the United States Congress, a woman who had not only divorced the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but had sued him for cruelty and desertion. She was not a fringe agitator; she was a former plural wife of Brigham Young, and her testimony helped galvanize the federal government to pass the Edmunds–Tucker Act in 1887, stripping women in Utah of their right to vote and dismantling the legal framework of polygamy. Her story is a single, jagged shard in a complex mosaic of women's history within the Latter Day Saint movement, a history that oscillates between profound institutional empowerment and rigid patriarchal constraint. The status of women in Mormonism has never been a static monolith; it is a living, breathing, and often contentious narrative that has evolved from the founding days of the 19th century to the present day, sparking public debate long before the death of Joseph Smith in 1844.
To understand the current landscape, one must first discard the binary assumptions that often plague modern discourse. The movement is not a single entity but a constellation of denominations, each charting a distinct course regarding gender and authority. At one extreme lies the Community of Christ, which practices the full equal status of women, including their ordination to the priesthood. At the other end of the spectrum sit the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) and similar groups, which maintain an ultra-patriarchal system centered on plural marriage. Sandwiched between these poles is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), the largest denomination, which operates under a patriarchal system where women hold significant influence but are excluded from priesthood ordination. This central tension—between the historical agency women exercised and the structural limits imposed upon them—forms the heartbeat of the Mormon woman's experience.
The Erasure and the Exception
For decades, the official historical record of the Latter Day Saint movement actively obscured the contributions of women. The narrative was curated to focus on the male prophet and the male apostles, leaving the female pioneers in the shadows. Consider the 1872 history titled The Rise, Progress, and Travels of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; in its pages, not a single woman is named. Similarly, B.H. Roberts' monumental seven-volume History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also published in 1872, mentions only a handful of women, treating them as footnotes to the male-led drama of the faith's expansion.
Yet, this silence was a fabrication of the historical record, not a reflection of reality. Women were not merely present; they were foundational. A notable exception to the erasure was the 19th-century historian Edward Tullidge. As scholar Claudia Bushman later observed, Tullidge "stood alone as a Mormon feminist historian before the revitalization of the women's movement in the 1970s." He recognized what the official histories ignored: that women like Emma Hale Smith, the wife of the movement's founder, were indispensable. Emma was not a passive observer; she served as a scribe during the translation of the Book of Mormon, a task requiring immense linguistic and spiritual fortitude. She was the subject of one of the church's earliest revelations, which directed her to compile the church's first hymnal, effectively shaping the sonic landscape of the faith.
Beyond her role as a scribe, Emma Smith became the head of the Relief Society. Founded in 1842, this organization was originally a self-governing women's body within the church, distinct from the male priesthood hierarchy. It grew to become one of the oldest and largest women's organizations in the world. The Relief Society was not a charity club; it was a vehicle for female autonomy, economic relief, and spiritual instruction. In the early days, the line between priesthood authority and women's spiritual power was more fluid than it is today. Women would sometimes lay hands on another person to give a special "women's blessing." Patty Bartlett Sessions, a midwife, recorded giving and receiving these blessings, as did Louisa Barnes Pratt in her life as a pioneer and missionary. These acts were not performed by virtue of priesthood ordination, which was reserved for men, but were considered a normal and powerful part of religious life.
Eliza Snow, a poet and the second president of the Relief Society, articulated a theology of female authority that challenged the rigid hierarchies of her time. She believed that women did not need to be "set apart" by male leaders to officiate in temple ordinances or administer to the sick. She advised women to confide their personal issues to the Relief Society president and her counselors, rather than to the bishops, effectively creating a parallel spiritual counsel. Women also participated in the Anointed Quorum in the early church, an inner circle that included both men and women who received specific priesthood ordinances and blessings.
The Political Frontier: Suffrage and Divorce
The secular sphere of the Utah Territory became a testing ground for women's rights that was years ahead of the rest of the nation. In 1870, Utah became one of the first states or territories in the Union to grant women the vote. This was not an act of liberal altruism by the territorial government but a strategic move within the complex political battle over polygamy; the church hoped that enfranchised women would vote to defend the practice of plural marriage against federal encroachment. The strategy backfired. The federal government, viewing the vote as a tool of Mormon polygamy, removed the franchise from women in 1887 via the Edmunds–Tucker Act.
However, the legacy of that brief period of enfranchisement was profound. Utah women had tasted political power, and they did not give it up quietly. Education and scholarship were primary concerns for these women, who viewed intellectual engagement as a form of spiritual duty. Religious missions were launched, such as Bathsheba W. Smith's mission to southern Utah, where she preached "woman's rights" with the same fervor as she preached the gospel. The Woman's Exponent, the unofficial publication of the Relief Society, became a megaphone for these ideas. In a 1920 editorial, the magazine championed "equal rights before the law, equal pay for equal work, [and] equal political rights." It declared unequivocally that a woman's place was not just "in the nursery" but "in the library, the laboratory, the observatory."
The legal landscape of 19th-century Utah was equally radical. The territory boasted the most liberal divorce laws in the United States at the time. The laws were stacked in favor of women: any woman who insisted on a divorce got one. The result was a divorce rate in late 19th-century Utah that hovered near 30 percent. This statistic was inflated by "divorce tourists" from other states seeking an easy exit from unhappy marriages, but it also reflected a genuine reality for Utah women who refused to be bound by abusive or neglectful unions. In 1896, Martha Hughes Cannon made history as the first woman in the nation elected to a state senate. In a twist that highlights the political potency of Mormon women, she ran against her own husband and defeated him.
The Polygamy Paradox
The practice of plural marriage remains the most contentious and misunderstood chapter in the story of Mormon women. Introduced by Joseph Smith in the 1830s following a revelation regarding Old Testament practices, polygamy was established in the church in 1831. It continued for nearly six decades until 1890, when President Wilford Woodruff issued the "Manifesto," a revelation that ceased the practice to allow the church to survive the legal pressures of the United States government. Following this, many groups broke away to continue the practice, forming the fundamentalist sects that exist today, while the main LDS Church severed all ties with them.
The popular narrative often reduces the experience of women in polygamy to two extremes: they were either highly empowered agents who chose a divine calling, or they were submissive dupes trapped in a patriarchal system. Both views are incomplete. The reality was a complex, agonizing negotiation of faith, family, and survival. While some church leaders did have large polygamous families, the statistical reality was far more modest. Two-thirds of the men who practiced polygamy had only two wives. At its peak in 1870, only 25 to 30 percent of the church population was part of polygamist families.
Women in these relationships were not merely passive victims; they were active participants who often chose the path with open eyes, though the choice was rarely easy. For many, the decision to accept plural marriage was a spiritual trial. They grappled with the doctrine, prayed over it, and questioned it before accepting it as a commandment from God. Elizabeth Graham MacDonald viewed polygamy as a form of discipline that taught her subordination to God and her family. Hannah Tapfield King and others described the experience as a great trial that taught self-denial, a suffering that they believed purified them and drew them closer to the divine.
The emotional toll was immense. Mothers often discouraged their daughters from entering into plural relationships, recognizing the difficulty ahead. Yet, the practice was woven into the daily fabric of life. Women who participated described the experience as a covenant, a way to make and keep promises to God that required immense personal sacrifice. It was a system that caused deep pain and division but also, for some, a profound sense of spiritual purpose. The legal and cultural friction with the federal government over polygamy placed Mormon women at the center of a national debate, forcing them to defend a practice that many outsiders viewed as inherently oppressive, even as they found their own agency within it.
The Modern Shift: Ordination, Gender, and Authority
As the 20th and 21st centuries unfolded, the LDS Church moved toward a more centralized hierarchy, and the role of women shifted accordingly. The fluid spiritual authority of the early church, where women gave blessings and officiated in temple ordinances without ordination, was gradually curtailed. Current LDS Church policy dictates that the act of giving blessings "by laying on of hands" is performed exclusively by those ordained to offices in the Melchizedek priesthood, offices held only by men. This marks a significant departure from the early days of the movement, where the boundary between male and female spiritual roles was more porous.
The issue of gender identity has emerged as a new front in this ongoing debate. The LDS Church does not recognize trans women as women, defining gender strictly as the "biological sex at birth." The church's position on intersex individuals is specific: if a person is born intersex, the decision to determine the child's sex is left to the parents, guided by medical professionals. These decisions can be made at birth or delayed until medically necessary. This biological determinism extends to priesthood eligibility. Trans women may be able to receive the priesthood, but only if they do not pursue medical, surgical, or social transitioning. Priesthood and temple ordinances are assigned according to birth sex, a policy that has drawn sharp criticism from advocates for LGBTQ+ rights and has created a complex pastoral dilemma for families within the church.
In 2015, the church published an essay in The Gospel Topics section of its website that attempted to clarify the historical nuance of women's authority. It stated that while neither Joseph Smith nor any other church leader formally ordained women to the priesthood, women do exercise priesthood authority without ordination. This distinction is crucial for understanding the church's self-perception: the authority exists, but it is not institutionalized through the ordination process. This theological stance attempts to bridge the gap between the early church's practices and the current hierarchical structure, acknowledging a spiritual power that operates outside the male priesthood line.
The Legacy of the Relief Society
Despite these restrictions, the Relief Society remains a powerhouse of female organization. It continues to be the largest women's organization in the world, serving as a vast network of support, charity, and education. The legacy of women like Emma Smith, Eliza Snow, and Martha Hughes Cannon lives on in the millions of women who serve in leadership roles within the church, even if those roles are not defined by priesthood ordination. The tension between the "zenith" of 19th-century institutional participation and the current patriarchal structure is palpable. Some historians argue that the 19th century represented the peak of women's institutional power, a time when women had their own organizations, their own newspapers, and their own political voice, before the centralization of the church in the 20th century rolled back many of those gains.
The story of Mormon women is not one of simple oppression or simple liberation. It is a story of resilience in the face of external persecution and internal contradiction. It is a story of women who were told they were equal in the eyes of God but were barred from the highest offices of the church. It is a story of women who embraced polygamy as a divine trial and women who sued the prophet who demanded it. From the suffrage victories of the 1870s to the modern debates over gender identity and priesthood, the status of women in Mormonism has been a source of public debate and internal reflection for nearly two centuries.
The narrative continues to evolve. The 1970s saw a revitalization of the women's movement within the church, mirroring the broader feminist movement of the era. Scholars like Claudia Bushman and others have worked to recover the lost history of Mormon women, ensuring that the names of the scribes, the hymnal compilers, and the political pioneers are no longer erased from the record. The Woman's Exponent spirit persists in modern publications and online forums where Mormon women discuss their faith, their struggles, and their place in a changing world.
The debate is far from over. As the church faces a global, multicultural future, the question of women's role remains central to its identity. Will the church return to the fluidity of the early days, where women's blessings were a common and accepted part of spiritual life? Or will the patriarchal structure solidify further? The answers lie in the hands of the women who continue to navigate this complex terrain, drawing on a history that is as rich in contradiction as it is in faith. They are the daughters of Emma Smith and the granddaughters of Ann Eliza Young, carrying a legacy that is at once a burden and a beacon.
In the end, the history of Mormonism and women is a testament to the human capacity to find meaning and agency within even the most restrictive systems. It is a history of women who built a civilization in the desert, who wrote the laws, who educated the children, and who wrestled with God over the nature of their own souls. Whether viewed through the lens of the Community of Christ's full equality, the FLDS's rigid traditionalism, or the LDS Church's complex middle ground, the story of Mormon women is a story of the relentless pursuit of spiritual and social standing in a world that often sought to define them by the men around them. It is a story that is still being written, one revelation, one policy, and one woman's life at a time.